Characterization of the Core Determinants of Social Influence From a Computational and Cognitive Perspective

Abstract

Most human decisions are made among social others, and in what social context the choices are made is known to influence individuals' decisions. Social influence has been noted as an important factor that may nudge individuals to take more risks (e.g., initiation of substance use), but ironically also help individuals to take safer actions (e.g., successful abstinence). Such bi-directional impacts of social influence hint at the complexity of social information processing. Here, we first review the recent computational approaches that shed light on neural and behavioral mechanisms underlying social influence following basic computations involved in decision-making: valuation, action selection, and learning. We next review the studies on social influence from various fields including neuroeconomics, developmental psychology, social psychology, and cognitive neuroscience, and highlight three dimensions of determinants—who are the recipients, how the social contexts are presented, and to what domains and processes of decisions the influence is applied—that modulate the extent to which individuals are influenced by others. Throughout the review, we also introduce the brain regions that were suggested as neural instantiations of social influence from a large body of functional neuroimaging studies. Finally, we outline the remaining questions to be addressed in the translational application of computational and cognitive theories of social influence to psychopathology and health.

Dynamic valuation bias explains social influence on cheating behavior

“…Previous work proposed that these two mechanisms are dependent on the accessibility of social information. Precisely, when individuals have a full access to others’ behavior or beliefs, the preference shifting mechanism would be more prevalent (38). Here, we show that a dynamic valuation bias better describes the mechanism of social influence when others’ behavior is fully accessible and accurately learned.…”

Moral learning and decision-making across the lifespan

“…In adults, social influence has been proposed as an important mechanism to explain why people follow others' choices (Lee & Chung 2022;Toelch & Dolan 2015;Yu et al 2021). In a moral context, both the size of a jury judging crime scenario and the confidence that each jury member has in their own moral judgment determine how much a given individual adapts to the judgment of the jury (social influence) (Park et al 2017).…”

“…When observing dishonest individuals, adults, like infants, might progressively become more and more dishonest (Dimant 2019;Gino et al 2009). Thus, learning about others' behaviour can dynamically change one's own preferences or bias one's own valuation process (Lee & Chung 2022;Yu et al 2018).…”

Cognitive mechanisms of being imitated

“…The issue of how we learn and are influenced by the similarity of others' preferences to our own is a key one for researchers in fields as diverse as psychology (Lee & Chung, 2022), evolutionary theory (Jones & DuVal, 2019), sociology (McPherson et al, 2001), and consumer marketing (Dholakia et al, 2004;Chloe Ki et al, 2022). In all these disciplines there has been great interest in the question of social influence, how discovering the preferences of others can lead to a change in one's own, with a vast proliferation of research on the structure of social influence and the factors that increase influence (Izuma, 2013;Chloe Ki et al, 2022;Lee & Chung, 2022;Schnuerch & Gibbons, 2014). However, as with research around motor imitation, there has been much less interest in the effects of being the target of preference mimicry.…”